


everything

by minachandler



Series: you're everything to me and you always have been [23]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e05 All Doll'd Up, F/M, Fluff, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minachandler/pseuds/minachandler
Summary: His heart ached for her - in knowing that she was hurting so much and that she was closing herself off. More than anything he wanted to take that burden from her, shoulder it for himself - but he knew he couldn't. And that made it worse in a way.Set during 5x05. In which Iris is hurting in ways that Barry can't fix, so he does the only thing he can do for his wife - and Iris welcomes the distraction.





	everything

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! God, it's been a while since I wrote Westallen, or at least it feels like it's been a while. As usual I am not sure how this one turned out - it feels pretty stream-of-consciousness and I blame the book I'm currently rereading for influencing my style like this. 
> 
> Anyway, I have always had a lot of emotions about Iris in *that* dress and I reckon Barry would too. I think that episode was a really good one for Westallen, especially with Iris literally throwing herself off a building to save Barry. So here's a very late episode tag for that. Fair warning that this does get steamy so please heed the rating.

“Holy shit,” Barry breathed as he walked into their room, bow tie undone around his collar, catching sight of his wife's reflection while she stood in front of the closet mirror with her mascara wand in her hand. Barry thanked the stars that he was a speedster, because it meant that he could savour the thousands of moments he spent drinking her in.

Iris just looked confused, though, and she frowned as she met Barry's eyes in the mirror. “What? Why are you staring at me like that? Oh God - I was right. My butt looks awful in this -”

“Iris, trust me,” Barry said, “your butt looks amazing.” Then he realised what he just said and backtracked hastily, “I mean - _you_ look amazing. Especially your… um... hair.”

In a way Barry was grateful for his awkward blunder, because it meant his wife's face finally split into a smile.

“You do realise you're allowed to say that, right? You, uh, being my husband and all?”

Barry chuckled. “Yeah. I guess I still need to be reminded every now and then.”

“We've been married over a year.”

“But sometimes,” he admitted, “a lot of the time - I feel like that was yesterday. Our wedding.”

“Yeah, and even that was after pretty hellish circumstances,” Iris said, more to herself than to Barry seemingly. And the hurt must have shown on his face, because seconds later Iris turned on the spot so she was facing him. “Sorry, babe. I didn't mean -”

“I know,” he said softly. “You don't have to apologise.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked, the guilt written all over her face.

He reached down, fingertips grazing her hairline, then tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. “As sure as I am that I love you.” There was a glimmer of hope in her eyes at that, but to Barry's dismay it only lasted a second - and then, again, all he could see was pain. “Doesn't take a genius to see something's on your mind.”

She nudged him gently. “Except you _are_ a genius. Just like…” And now she trailed off, just as her touch on his arm threatened to move away.

“You don't want to talk about it?” It was a question, technically, but really Barry was just affirming what he could tell from the look on Iris's face.

“I'm afraid if I start talking about it... I'll cry so hard that I won't be able to stop,” she admitted.

His heart ached for her - in knowing that she was hurting so much and that she was closing herself off. More than anything he wanted to take that burden from her, shoulder it for himself - but he knew he couldn't. And that made it worse in a way.

Above all, Barry knew Iris would open up to him if and when she was ready. He wasn't going to push. They reached that sort of understanding, without words, just with Barry's simple, resigned nod.

“So what you're saying is that you want a distraction?”

It was like she could hear his brain ticking as she reached up, so her palm was against the back of his neck, until she could run her fingers through his hair. She took a step forward, and in her bare feet she had to stand on the very tips of her toes just to be level with his shoulders. That didn't stop her, though, as she pressed herself up against him. Barry immediately groaned, pulling her closer, his hand moving up until his palm was touching the curve of her breast and he could tell that she wasn't wearing a bra. And Barry loved how Iris's eyes darkened at that, flooded with desire for him - mostly because that totally did it for him, but also because it meant that Barry's distraction was working.

“Mmm, I like the way you think, Barry West-Allen.”

And now Barry smiled. “Huh. I like the sound of that.”

“You should change it, then,” she said silkily, running her hands down his chest.

“Maybe I will.” His lips were an inch from hers, and he let himself get tantalisingly closer before moving away, and Barry couldn't help but revel in her moan of protest. “We're gonna be late if you have to apply all that again.”

“You're a speedster,” she protested.

“Who still manages to be late all the time.” He landed a kiss on her cheek. “And who has still yet to master the lost art of applying lipstick.”

“You're such a fucking tease, Barry,” she said breathlessly.

“You love me,” Barry murmured back, dropping kisses down her neck and exposed collarbone instead, and he could sense the warn hum of her resultant laugh almost before it emanated from her throat.

“I do,” she replied after a second. “So much.” He met her eyes, lips parting, wanting to say the words back to her. But Iris placed a finger on his lips and just added, “Put that mouth to better use. Mr West-Allen.”

Laughing, he held her gaze even as he got obediently on his knees, and Iris was squirming even before Barry hooked his fingertips around her panties, a barely-there scrap of black lace that fell to her ankles after a small tug. He started slow, just the palm of his hand against her thigh, and he had gotten the hang of this slowing down time thing too, so he could take his sweet speedster seconds one eternity at a time, just breathing her in.

Iris was already gasping, sharp intakes of breath as she took a couple of steps backwards and landed on the bed. Barry waited, patient as he could be when all he could smell was the intoxicating scent of her arousal and all he wanted to do was taste her. She moved her dress out of the way easily, splayed out her legs, ready for him, and Barry was so, so glad that there was a slit conveniently high up in her red dress.

Barry nudged his nose into the crease between her hip and her thigh, where he couldn't help but revel in the faint smell of sweat, mingled with the perfume she always wore, smelling of wildflowers on her silky-soft skin. And then, all at once, he wasn't just hungry for her - he _needed_ to taste her, this primal feeling that filed every nerve in his body. Barry's tongue darted out, for what felt like forever but was in fact a millisecond in real time, and she'd always been sensitive, yet even so Iris's resultant whimper was enough to make Barry's heart thud even faster. Still, he took his time, treasuring the taste of her pooling on his tongue, marvelling at how the closer he got to her throbbing centre the sweeter his wife got - and not just the honeyed scent filling his nose and every drop of sticky wetness that Barry could lap up with his mouth. No, as much as he loved that, what he loved more was the sweet murmur of her voice, quiet to begin with, then once Barry found her swollen clit with his mouth  and knew she was close, it became a low cry as she panted for breath and pleaded with Barry. Iris's fingers threaded through Barry's hair, mussing it up and then pulling so hard that if it was anyone else it would have hurt - but not Iris. Never Iris.

Barry didn't stop, not until Iris's hips had ceased their rocking against his face and her body stopped trembling. He looked up at her then, met her eyes - sparkling with liquid pleasure or sadness or love or maybe all three - and she smiled back, through her tears,  catching Barry's free hand and squeezing it with her own. Without hesitation, Barry lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

“Come here, Barry,” Iris breathed, tugging at his hand as she sat up on the bed. Their lips met briefly in a soft kiss before Iris wrapped her arms around Barry's waist, resting her head against his chest. “I love you. It's the only thing in the world that makes any kind of sense to me right now, Barrry West-Allen.”

Barry just chuckled. “You're really pitching on that, huh?”

“Of course I am.”

***

A day, a scary ragdoll and an even scarier dive off a rooftop later, Barry and Iris found themselves back in their bed. Barry had taken off his shirt before getting under the covers, and when Iris came into bed several minutes later, she took off her dressing gown and pulled his discarded shirt around herself.

It was a sight that Barry for the life of him was always surprised he was privy to - his wife in nothing more than her panties and his shirt. She always did up two of the buttons in the middle, low enough for him to get a tantalising snatch of her cleavage when she leaned forward, the shirt’s hem reaching halfway down her thigh. Seeing her like that - for so long - it never ceased to render him speechless, at least for a good minute.

He remembered the time, early on in their relationship, golden hours and days and weeks filled with shaking fingers on bra clasps and uncertain thumbs on jean loops, of first times when like dancers they were yet to find their rhythm. It was then that he had asked why she liked to wear his stuff. She’d taken a breath, not hiding the fact that she was a little nervous about what she was about to say, then murmured something in his ear, about how there were times when she would look at him, usually when he wasn’t looking, brow furrowed in concentration over something, and she had felt this hunger in her heart and the primal need to jump his bones. Barry had just laughed at that, a touch nervously back then too, still not entirely used to this level of candour from his best friend.

Then Iris had added that even that wasn't enough. Moments like those - she wanted to be enveloped and tangled and immersed in him, in every way humanly possible.

Then she had straddled him, sudden and fast, pushing her hair away from her face and raining kisses on mouth and nose and jaw and neck and chest, kissing all the breath out of him when she pressed her mouth against the swell of his Adam's apple. Put simply, Iris had ravaged him, and Barry had revelled in every sweet second of it. And Barry had understood, then, what Iris had meant, even more so when he felt her legs tighten around his waist and her body clung to his - limbs slick with sweat, kissing him so hard and fast that Barry was almost convinced she wanted to take a bite out of him. And all the while, even as they gasped for air together, moved together - and for the first time they found their rhythm enough so they _came_ together - it wasn't just that Barry was inside her or that she was around or on top or joined with him. It was that Barry Allen was in a union with Iris West, in body and mind and soul.

Now, well over two years on, there was a comfortable intimacy in the air as Iris settled into bed with Barry. For a while they lay in silence, Iris tracing absent-minded circles on his bare chest.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“I guess… I was thinking how I don't know how I could ever thank you.”

“You already did,” Iris said quietly, and she hadn't met his eyes yet, hers fixated on a beauty mark on his hip. “You also called me crazy, but you weren’t exactly wrong about that.”

Automatically Barry smiled. “I wasn’t complaining. You saved my life.”

“We've already established that.”

“You could have _died_.”

“ _You_ could have died,” she countered. “I had to do something.”

Barry nodded. “I know. I just - can't imagine the world without you in it. And more than anything I'm glad I still have you by my side.”

“Always.” If that was Iris's cue for a kiss, Barry seemed to have missed it, so lost he was in her eyes and the way she pushed back her hair away from her eyes nervously. “But if we had - died, I mean, there's no one I'd rather die with than you.”

“There's no one I'd rather die _for_ than you.”

She nudged him playfully. “Hey, I was about to say that too. You stole my line.”

“And Nora,” Barry added, and it was so gratifying, to the point that his heart soared, when Iris smiled at the mention of their daughter, rather than the usual look of pain in her eyes.

“Yeah. I… I didn't think it would be possible, for us to get to a point where we were - okay. But now I think there might be hope. And I have Cecile to thank for that. And you of course.”

“I didn't do anything.”

“You didn't have to do anything. Just you… being here - your presence - that's all I need. That's all I've ever needed. And…” Now, though, Iris hesitated.

“What is it?” Barry asked.

“I know I just said I want to die with you - but part of the reason I jumped off that building was because I needed be able to… live with you. Grow old with you.”

“And you will.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I meant it when I said I plan on living a long life with you. And I may not be Ollie Queen, but that doesn’t mean I’m one to back down from a fight. Especially when our daughter's life depends on it.”

“And that right there is why I love you.”

“For not being Ollie?” Barry asked teasingly.

Iris pretended to shrug. “Amongst other things. I mean - it's a close call, sure, but I think you're the better kisser.”

“You _think_?”

At this she just burst out laughing, scrunching her nose, her eyes sparkling with warmth, and it didn’t matter in the slightest that Barry had resigned himself to his wife gently poking fun at him; his heart was already lighter knowing that hers was too.

He tried to sound grumpy as he said, “I guess I should be glad I have something on him, right?”

Iris answered him with a kiss. “No. Not just something. You have everything on him. Everything I've ever wanted.”

**Author's Note:**

> That's it! I'm super rusty or at least I feel that way, so if you have positive thoughts about this fic I would absolutely love to know. Thanks very much for reading and I hope to write more Westallen in the future :) Have a wonderful day!


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